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May 12, 2013

[Most of the language in
the immigration package, created by a bipartisan group of eight senators,
applies equally to citizens of any foreign nation. It calls for tougher border
security and a pathway to citizenship for millions of illegal immigrants in the
United States. It also increases the number of visas for high-skilled workers
to at least 110,000 annually from the current 65,000 and eases the way for
those already here to seek a permanent resident visa, known as green card. With
uncertain support in the Senate and tough opposition in the House, the fate of
the bill is far from clear.]

WASHINGTON —
The government of South Korea hired a
former C.I.A. analyst, two White House veterans and a team of ex-Congressional
staff members to help secure a few paragraphs in the giant immigration bill.

The government of Ireland, during St. Patrick’s Day festivities,
appealed directly to President Obama and Congressional
leaders for special treatment. And the government of Poland squeezed Vice
President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and top lawmakers on Capitol Hill for its own
favor, a pitch repeated at an embassy party last week featuring pirogi and
three types of Polish ham.

Those countries, and
others, succeeded in winning provisions in the fine print of the 867-page immigration bill now before
Congress that give their citizens benefits not extended to most other
foreigners.

Ireland and South Korea
extracted measures that set aside for their citizens a fixed number of the
highly sought special visas for guest workers seeking to come to the United
States. Poland got language that would allow it to join the list of nations
whose citizens can travel to the United States as tourists without visas. And
Canadians successfully pushed for a change that would permit its citizens who
are 55 and older and not working to stay in the United States without visas for
as much as 240 days each year, up from the current 182.

South Korea alone has
four lobbying firms in the campaign, paying them collectively at a rate that
would total $1.7 million this year, according to required disclosure reports.
Other nations generally relied on their own ambassadors and embassy staff to
make the push, meaning there is no way to track how much has been spent on the
effort.

The deals are already
drawing some criticism, particularly from those who worry that some of the
provisions — in addition to already increased annual visa allotments available
generally — could create an influx of foreigners large enough to undermine
American workers.

“This could turn into a
stealth immigration policy,” said Ronil Hira, a professor of public policy at
the Rochester Institute of Technology who studies the immigration system.
“Every country is going to try to negotiate its own carve-out.”

Advocates of the
measures say they serve American interests. Loosening the tourist visa
requirements, for example, would result in hundreds of thousands of additional
visitors spending billions of dollars each year, supporters say.

Senator Charles E.
Schumer, a New York Democrat who was responsible in part for inserting the
measures affecting Poland, Canada and Ireland
into the legislation, defends them. “Each of these provisions makes individual
sense on the merits,” a spokesman for the senator said. “They each solve
inequities in the existing immigration law.”

The proposed foreign
deals have drawn little scrutiny, but Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican
of Iowa, and his staff are starting to raise questions about some of them,
saying Americans deserve to fully understand what is in the huge immigration
package. “I plan to ask many questions throughout this process,” Mr. Grassley
warned during a Senate Judiciary Committee meeting on Thursday.

Some diplomats who
worked for the carefully devised benefits had hoped to avoid such attention.
“If we could stay below the radar, we would much prefer it,” one senior
official at an embassy in Washington said on the condition of anonymity.

Most of the language in
the immigration package, created by a bipartisan group of eight senators,
applies equally to citizens of any foreign nation. It calls for tougher border
security and a pathway to citizenship for millions of illegal immigrants in the
United States. It also increases the number of visas for high-skilled workers
to at least 110,000 annually from the current 65,000 and eases the way for
those already here to seek a permanent resident visa, known as green card. With
uncertain support in the Senate and tough opposition in the House, the fate of
the bill is far from clear.

But with access to the United
States a prize coveted across much of the world, the push for special favors
has been intense, according to Congressional and Justice Department records.

An Irish-American group,
working with the Irish Embassy, hired former Representative Bruce Morrison,
Democrat of Connecticut, to help push its cause, arguing that changes in
immigration law decades ago created an unfair barrier to citizens of Ireland in
gaining access to the United States.

In 1990, he inserted a
provision, since named the Morrison Visa, into
immigration legislation that temporarily gave special preference to citizens of
Ireland and a small number of other nations. The current proposal would allow
work visas for 10,500 Irish citizens annually who are high school graduates, an
unusual opportunity, since such visas are generally reserved for foreigners
considered “high skilled.”

Lobbyists working for
South Korea — including Brian D. Smith, a
White House aide during the Clinton administration; Scott D. Parven,
a former Senate aide; Kirsten A.
Chadwick, a Bush White House aide; and Jonathan R. Wakely, a former
C.I.A. political analyst — made dozens of calls and visits to Capitol Hill in
recent months to push for a special “professional visa” for its citizens,
focusing on central players on the House and Senate Judiciary Committees, the
Justice Department records show.

The lobbyists or the
political action committees run by their firms have also made campaign
donations to lawmakers who support their cause, in some cases just weeks before
the helpful language was introduced, campaign finance records show. Foreign
officials are prohibited by law from contributing to American political
campaigns.

President Park Geun-hye
of South Korea, on her first official visit to Washington last week, pressed Mr. Obama and
lawmakers to preserve the language in the immigration legislation that would
designate at least 5,000 special work visas for South Koreans, or pass an even
more generous stand-alone bill introduced last month,
which would create 15,000 such visas annually.

The South Korean
government has said the provision is a necessary companion to the free trade
agreement both nations ratified in 2011, so that highly skilled workers can
move back and forth between the two countries freely. Australia received a similar deal in
2005 after it negotiated its own free trade pact.

“If the bill on visa
quotas for Korean professionals is passed in this Congress, both our economies
will benefit, for it would help create many more jobs,” Ms. Park said in an
address to Congress on Wednesday. She followed up by soliciting help from
American corporations at a luncheon hosted by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Senator Jeff Flake,
Republican of Arizona, has been the leading proponent of South Korea’s request
on the Senate side, while Representative Peter Roskam, Republican of Illinois,
is leading the effort in the House. “It allows the free trade agreement to
flourish and meet its potential,” said Mr. Roskam, who sat next to Ms. Park at
a dinner hosted by the South Korean embassy last week.

The Poles made their
pitch at Ambassador Ryszard Schnepf’s
residence on Tuesday, where hundreds of Polish diplomats, military personnel
and prominent Polish-Americans joined at least half a dozen members of Congress
and the guest of honor, Mr. Biden. (He joked that some in his home state,
Delaware, called him “Joe Bidenski.”)

Poland wants the United
States to revamp the rules that allow foreign nations to become eligible for
the so-called visa waiver program, letting tourists visit the United States
without having a formal interview at embassies overseas.

Poland has been unable
to qualify because too many of its citizens are rejected when they apply for
visas — an indicator that they might try to fraudulently use a tourist visa to
immigrate to the United States.

The effort to revise the
rules has support from the White House and groups that promote tourism in the
United States. The provision could also benefit 10 or so other countries,
including Argentina, Brazil and Israel.

But Jess T. Ford, who examined border
security issues for the Government Accountability Office until
2011, said the change could create a loophole leaving the United States
vulnerable to increased illegal immigration, at least until the United States
sets up a long-delayed system to monitor visitors when they exit, not just when
they arrive.

“Once somebody comes in
here as a tourist, you can’t keep track of them,” Mr. Ford said in an
interview.

So far, Obama
administration officials and backers of the measure in Congress say they are
confident that simplifying the tourist entry process will not create such a
problem, as an exit-tracking system is promised as part of the package. It is a
position that the lobbying team pushing for the change considers good news.

“I am confident, Mr. Vice
President, that with your help, we will get this issue across the finish line,”
Ambassador Schnepf told Mr. Biden last week, drawing applause and cheers.